Click Here To Fly There

By Jeremy Caplan

Remember travel agencies? Like handwritten letters and card catalogs, they seem almost quaint now that Web users are planning almost all their travel online. Last year 4 out of 5 Americans who arranged trips on the Web also bought their tickets online, up from 70% in 2004. Now a new generation of travel sites is making trip planning cheaper, more efficient and more fun. Here's a quick tour of the top new tools.

FLIGHT SHOPPING

Two-thirds of online travel planners cling to the big three--Expedia, Travelocity and Priceline--but the sharpest new way to search for bargain flights is on Kayak.com The site covers fares on some 300 airlines in any given week and saves time by letting you adjust search parameters, using a sliding dial, without having to start from scratch. It's also handy for getting hotel and car-rental deals.

PLAN YOUR ITINERARY

Yahoo's Trip Planner, Travel.yahoo.com/trip provides a free sleek Web folder for your online research about museums, restaurants, lodging and sights at your destination. After gathering Web pages with information about the places you're visiting, you can print your itinerary, and save it for future trips or share it online.

ORGANIZE A GROUP TRIP

If you're planning a reunion or a weekend away with friends, Triphub.com is like a traveler's version of Evite.com You can book group tickets, discuss the best hotels and sights to see, or figure out where you'll all meet up on arrival. Less than two months old, the site is still working out the kinks.

SAVE ON A RENTAL CAR

Booking a car at an airport can cost double what you'd pay online. Whether you're traveling abroad or in the U.S., Bnm.com can help track down and reserve the cheapest rentals available. If you don't care about the specific model you drive, check Bnm's prices and those at Hotwire.com then go to Priceline.com's car-rental page to bid for steeper discounts. For bidding help, go to Biddingfortravel.com

WATCH WHERE YOU GO

Reading about a place just isn't the same as seeing it. To help, Turnhere.com posts free short videos of popular destinations around the world to watch online or on an iPod. One of the best is about top spots in Reykjavik. The site is new. Many of its films are worthwhile, though some can be tedious.

TRIP TRACKING

Relentless bargain hunters know what it's like to search 12 times a day to see if that July flight to Paris is getting cheaper. Tripstalker.com takes care of that, constantly scouring for inexpensive trips and alerting you by e-mail or text message once a flight, hotel or rental car matching your search criteria turns up.